The London School of Economics yesterday held an Alternative Asset Conference at London’s Marriott hotel in Grosvenor Square, but why was press reporting restricted?

The London School of Economics organised the conference

The press were invited to hear from the world of private equity with press passes printed for Financial News/Private Equity News, Reuters, Bloomberg, The Economist, the Financial Times, Unquote, PEI Media et al. Except there was a last minute hitch: the press were not allowed to attend all but a few of the talks on the agenda.

Canada Pension Plan and Silver Lake raised concerns over the presence of the press, according to two event organisers at the event, and other firms appear to have followed suit.

“We obviously wanted the publicity for the event,” one organiser admitted. “But we were told that these speakers might not turn up at all if we allowed the press in.”

It’s a shame as the private equity industry has been trying to demonstrate to the public that it is a transparent and accountable sector that has nothing to hide from the public. A last-minute press blackout will hardly help shrug off allegations of secrecy and lack of disclosure.

Some of the speakers were also important, including Alain Carrier, a board member of the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, a investment body which invests Canadian public sector pension money, whose website says it helps “sustain the future pensions of 18 million Canadians”.

However, a revised schedule said his views were off limits. In fact, only four of the day’s 13 planned speeches were marked “press allowed” in the revised day’s agenda. Other firms that had a press ban on their sessions were: CVC Capital Partners, BC Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Apollo Global Management, Montagu Private Equity, TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs Alternative Investments & Manager Selection Group.

The few that were happy for press to attend were: Silicon Valley Bank, Dechert, Greenoaks Capital Management, Advent Venture Partners and Intel Capital.

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A spokeswoman for the LSE conference said some of the “no press” sections of the event had been expressly requested, while others had simply not specified either way in time for the event. She said she did not know which firms had gone out of their way to ban the press.

A spokesman for BC Partners and Montagu said he had not been contacted regarding the decision to ban the press, KKR said it had not agreed to a press ban, while all other firms were either unavailable for comment in time to respond to this article.